_Sir W._ Burnt!--the stairs?

_Gilb._ Burnt, sir, as sure as I'm standing here!--burnt, sir, for fuel
one _scarce year_, as they says, sir. Moreover, when a man does get up
the stairs, sir, why he is as bad off again, and worse; for the floor of
the place they calls the bedchamber, shakes at every step, as if it was a
coming down with one; and the walls has all cracks, from top to toe--and
there's rat-holes, or holes o' some sort or t'other, all in the floor: so
that if a man don't pick his steps curiously, his leg must go down through
the ceiling below. And moreover, there's holes over head through the roof,
sir; so that if it rains, it can't but pour on the bed. They tell me, they
used for to shift the bed from one place to another, to find, as they say,
the dry corner; but now the floor is grown so crazy, they dare not stir the
bed for their lives.

_Sir W._ Worse and worse!

_Gilb._ And moreover, they have it now in the worst place in the whole
room, sir. Close at the head of the bed, there is a window with every pane
broke, and some out entirely, and the women's petticoats and the men's hats
just stuck in to _stop all for the night_, as they say, sir.

[_GILBERT tries to stifle his laughter._

_Sir W._ Laugh out, honest Gilbert. In spite of your gravity and your
civility, laugh. There is no harm, but sometimes a great deal of good done
by laughing, especially in Ireland. Laughing has mended, or caused to be
mended, many things that never would have been mended otherwise.

_Gilb._ (_recovering his gravity_) That's true, I dare to say, sir.